Teacher Tip#3: Tips on how to teach your students to summarize

Summarizing is putting in your own words a shortened version of the written or spoken material, stating the main points and leaving out everything that is not essential. Summarizing is more than retelling – it means analyzing information, distinguishing important from unimportant elements and translating large chunks of information into a few short cohesive sentences.

It helps students because it

allows both students and teachers to monitor comprehension of material.

helps students understand the organization structure of lessons or texts.